Earth Days

With the wave of outstanding documentaries dealing with environmental issues,now it's time to add one more. Robert Stone's 'Earth Days'is a non preachy documentary on the history of Earth Day,since the first one back in 1970,that pointed out that we should start to step back & do a serious re-thing on our role as citizens of Mother Earth. The film has some real nice footage of some of the finest names in environmental concerns today (Paul Erlich,Pete McCloskey,Dennis Hayes, Dennis Meadows,and Rachel Carson,author of the now legendary pro environmental book,'The Silent Spring',and others). The documentary also gets kudos for vintage film clips of both pro,as well as anti environmental films (the black & white footage from an episode of 'Face The Nation' is a hoot in itself). Robert Stone,in addition to directing this film,also wore several other hats in production (he wrote the outline of the concept,photographed & co-edited the film,with assistance from Don Kleszy). If you care about the future of our planet (or lack of,thereof),you owe it to yourself to seek this fine documentary out. Not rated by the MPAA,but contains little to offend

This documentary was at its best with Paul Ehrlich and Dennis Meadows talking about overpopulation and exponential growth, which ought to be the main focus of environmental films; to discourage the view that technology will solve everything, even as the economy that produces it keeps trying to grow. A combination of more birth control and personal restraint is what could really save the Earth.

We see the usual panoply of talking heads who fought for nature, and I'm all for that, but when I saw an army of big wind turbines rising from the desert in an early scene, I was reminded that Man's "solutions" to environmental problems tend to cause more harm than good. Wind power (and solar mirror arrays) are increasingly industrializing landscapes and ocean views that other energy development wouldn't touch. They repeat the old mistake of tackling everything as a construction project to "create jobs and help the environment," but the latter never quite happens.

Allowing vast tracts of scenery and flying creatures to be destroyed for intermittent electricity is an environmental tragedy as bad as climate change. There is no easy way, if any, to eliminate fossil fuels from the economy, especially oil. All renewable energy infrastructure is built and transported with it one way or another.

I'm still waiting for a mainstream documentary that admits Man is mucking things up with so-called solutions.